'Foreign media fail to undermine Malaysia'

KUALA LUMPUR - Deputy Prime Minister Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said yesterday Malaysia's success in hosting the 13th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit showed that the foreign media had failed to undermine the country and Prime Minister Dato' Seri Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
Abdullah, who is Home Minister, said he had envisaged that the foreign media would pursue their agenda to undermine Malaysia especially during the NAM Summit which ended on Tuesday.
"Whatever we do which are not to their liking and against their agenda, they will undermine us," he told a media conference after a meeting to thank police officers and personnel assigned to the NAM Summit, at the Police Training Centre (Pulapol) here.
The NAM Summit, where Malaysia assumed its chairmanship for a three-year term, has been described as the most successful in the history of NAM.
Abdullah said that as a sovereign nation, Malaysia would continue to voice out the aspirations of its leaders and its people loud and clear.
He said that Malaysia would not bow to pressure and the dictates of foreign countries and would continue to uphold its right of expression.
The Deputy Prime Minister said Malaysia had also been condemned by the foreign media during the regional financial crisis but their actions had not prevented the country from initiating measures to deal with the situation.
"They've criticised Malaysia and the Prime Minister but we continued to forge ahead and we knew what we were doing and we succeeded," he said.
Abdullah said that during the crisis, Malaysia did not subscribe to the established strategy by accepting the remedy offered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and instead resorted to measures which were most unorthodox.
"We've proven finally that we're doing right. We don't suffer high social cost to achieve economic recovery," he said.-Bernama